you could say i'm a fool
by sofsrebekah
Summary: Then she realized she had never loved anyone as she had loved Niklaus. Or you could say hate. Nowadays, she barely sees the difference with him.


_On your headstone, should we write that you loved all the things that destroyed you._

It took her only a thousand years to realize her mistake, after he disowned her as a sister.

Only a thousand, Rebekah thought, bitterly, finishing the scotch in her glass at once. If it was her second or twentieth glass, however, she couldn't tell. Nowadays, she seemed to drink more than she walked. But it helped, even if sometimes it tasted bitter while she drank it, so she didn't care if people muttered behind her back that she spent too much time in a bar for someone who was, according to what they thought, just a teenager.

They were both such a liars, she thought. And she had been a fool for staying at her brother's side for so long. She was such a fool, such, such a fool...

* * *

The problem was that she still remembered the promises they had made each another. She remembered her brother calming her down when she woke up screaming because of a nightmare. She remembered him making her laugh when she was crying, she remembered going to parties together and feeding from people until they were drained. She remembered the first time a wolf had bitten her, and how he had stayed with her while the hallucinations had made her shake and scream, while the pain made her feel like she was dying all over again. She remembered how, desperately, he had bitten his wrist and made her drink, and they had discovered his blood was the cure for a werewolf bite.

So then, when she felt herself missing him, she tried to remembered the bad things too. She tried to remembered the betrayals, the daggers, the prolonged time of being in the darkness, _always in the darkness._ She tried to remembered how he had killed every single person she had loved, how he had made her life a living hell.

Most of times she succeeded, and ended up thinking 'Who do yo think_ you_ are to disown me as a sister?' Then she realized she had never loved anyone as she had loved Niklaus. Or you could say hate. Nowadays, she barely sees the difference with him.

* * *

When, after the party she gave, she realizes someone must have put werewolf poison in her drink she refuses to call him, even though she feels like she's dying. She can deal with this by herself, she thinks. She doesn't need her bloody bastard of a brother to come and help her. Even if that means feeling horribly during a night.

Thought, it really doesn't matter, because pain is something she has already endured before. So she tells herself she doesn't need him and simply closes the doors and windows. She does wonder with what she will hallucinate this time, though. She hopes it's not Henrik again.

* * *

Alright, so it wasn't Henrik, which was good, she thinks later.

It was about her not deserving to be loved, which wasn't good, but hey, she's alive. Lately, that alone is enough for her.

She ignores what she hallucinated, because it makes her remember how worthless Klaus made her feel when he said 'You are nothing'. And she hates feeling worthless. She's not nothing. She has never been nothing. Even a thousand years ago, she was a witch. She was a daughter, a sister. And then, she was an original vampire.

So she's not nothing. And if he thinks differently then he can go to hell.

* * *

So Niklaus daggers her. Again. It's so familiar, the feeling of being used and then discarded when she was no longer useful... Before the dagger enters her body, she says "Go right ahead. Laugh at the girl who loved too easily. But I would rather have lived my life than yours, Nik. No one will ever sit around a table telling stories about a man who couldn't love. Do it. Look me in the eye and do it, you coward!"

And he daggers her, but he's _such_ a coward. She hates him, she hates him, she hates him, and she swears to herself 'Never again' and that she will one day, burn this town to the ground, with everyone in it. With the _bloody_ doppelganger, with that stupid blonde, with the Salvatore brothers...

Then it's all darkness.

* * *

April Young wakes her up, and she decides to torture Elena and Stefan and Caroline and a few others she doesn't really care for, but it's nothing what she did, really. She knows they must be saying she's a bitch, but she doesn't care really. She's done helping them. She was used too many times by all of them, too many times.

When she learns Kol is dead, she swears someday she'll burn the whole town to the ground, but she doesn't say it out loud.

There would be no point in that, only making them aware. So she makes them believe she forgave them and cries for a day and then puts herself together because she can't lose herself, not now.

* * *

Niklaus ruins her opportunity with the cure, so when Elijah asks her to go to New Orleans, she basically tells him she hopes Niklaus suffers.

Because she does. She has never hating somebody so much as she hates Niklaus. She also loves him, but that detail is irrelevant right now. She always hated New Orleans anyway, after Klaus daggered her for kissing Marcel, so it's not like she wants to go there. Besides, she still remembers crying in Elijah's arms because Emil was dead and she actually liked him. She's not sure how long they would have lasted, but she wanted to find out.

And he killed him.

No, she really doesn't wish Niklaus any joy. She had run behind him for far too long, and the 'Always and forever' seemed strange when she thought about it, and made her feel guilty.

She _still_ had no intention of going. She hopes he suffers, she thinks. _Some_ days, she wants to go and rip him to pieces.

* * *

Months later, she went only to save Elijah, because he was a fool and he was daggered.

* * *

When she leaves New Orleans, finally, all she can think is that she actually missed her brother. But things are not the same, perhaps they never will.

(Half a century later, they both visit Mystic Falls, although Rebekah does most of the burning. Elijah is... Well, she's not sure where he is right now. But she burns the school down, a school she liked, and then reaches to grab Niklaus' hand. Maybe they are not the same, but she thinks they can still be a family.)


End file.
